I guess had been a regular Kotaku reader for about 3 years, until their redesign made it a pain for my antiquated 35 year old brain to navigate their site. But it seems to me that their redesign also brought a new editorial style. Does anyone notice that there seems to be much more cursing in te articles on Kotaku since the new look? Are they trying to seem "edgy"? Maybe I'm nuts.
I'm a regular Kotaku reader too (That's where I found your material, actually) and yeah, the editorial quality has seriously suffered after the redesign. Rather shitty, lately. I rarely feel the urge to comment there anymore. That being said, I swear a lot all the time. Their dip in editorial quality goes further than swearing, they've become shallow, lately.
I've been visiting Kotaku less and less since the redesign, as I find the layout rather bewildering. Then again, I guess the average visitor probably found the list-like pages of old lengthy and boring to scroll through. I must be showing my age! Another site I'm not spending as much time at these days is Eurogamer, although I still read Rich Leadbetter's technical features as I've followed his work since the MAXIMUM/SSM days (I really am showing my age). Even the legendary UK:Resistance has gone now, and with that I fear that classic videogaming journalism online is quickly heading the way its print ancestor mostly has as well... or does anyone know of similar places they could recommend?
Since the redesign it just shows as a blank page to me thanks to all the ads being blocked. Nothing much lost really.
Why bother reading kotaku when there's other better sites out there. I prefer Destructoid, Gamasutra, Joystiq, TheSixthAxis, ...
Many sites have gone this way. If anybody here ever visited Screwattack pre the re design (and Tom leaving) That's a prime example.
I've noticed alot of junk posts across the entire Gawker blogosphere lately, I criticized one and got banned from commenting
I usually just skim the headlines. If I actually read the articles or comments I feel like I'm getting stupider while reading. The writing is lame and biased. I might have to check out some of the sites Johnny mentioned. After looking at the Pro Gaming article today, I don't want to read anything else there.
Destructoid was pretty cool last time I went there. Pretty cool site, and yes, as of lately, less bad than Kotaku.
know what else I hate? when one of the gawker sites will crosspost from another one and you have to click through multiple times just to get to the full article
Kotaku was cool when it was just Brian C. Once the other ones got hired on, the swearing begun, this would be roughly around 2007 it went south quite quickly after that. The shameless whoring of the staff's books and T shirts which shows a MAJOR conflict of interest did it for me (doesn't happen so much anymore), not to mention Ashcraft's cutting and pasting of other sites posts and passing them off at first glance as his own. He ripped off Kohler from Game Life once and I emailed Kohler about it, he wrote back a few days later saying they were aware of it and thanks for the heads up. Gawker as whole is POS and as mentioned above, there are far better sites to visit. Even better Insert Credit is back !
I do usually once a day. Their coverage of manga annoys me. And I don't like how they seem to suckle at the tit of certain companies. It almost seems more of a fanyboy site than a gaming news site IMHO. It doesn't help that they totally ignore my company when we've approached them directly. Gives me a bit of a jaundice eye.
Destructoid is a great site. I discovered it when they were the only ones to get give a correct review on Brutal Legend (its shit). Giant Bomb is also good, thats where Gertsman went after gametrailers fired him for writing a truthful review the advertisers didn't like. I still read Kotaku but I'm starting to know whose articles to avoid. Ashcroft's articles are always about Japan culture, not about gaming. Theres nothing really wrong with that but it is a gaming site. The guy basically turns on Japanese tv, thinks of something to write, and calls it an article. The site is really starting to get an IGN feel where all the writers come off as 17 year olds (and in some cases are!).
